Related papers: Stellar Crowding and the Science Case for Extremel…
We have calculated synthetic spectra for typical chemical element mixtures (i.e., a standard alpha-enhanced distribution, and distributions displaying CN and ONa anticorrelations) found in the various subpopulations harboured by Galactic…
Recent detection of high-redshift, massive clusters through Sunyaev-Zel'dovich observations has opened up a new way to test cosmological models. It is known that detection of a single supermassive cluster at a very high redshift can rule…
We describe a new concept to correct for scintillation noise on high-precision photometry in large and extremely large telescopes using telemetry data from adaptive optics (AO) systems. Most wide-field AO systems designed for the current…
Wide-field optical imaging surveys are efficient at identifying galaxy clusters, but optically identified clusters suffer from projection effects--physically unassociated galaxies along the line of sight can be misidentified as cluster…
Deep photometry of crowded fields, such as Galactic Globular Clusters, is severely limited by the actual resolution of ground-based telescopes. On the other hand, the Hubble Space Telescope does not provide the near-infrared (NIR) filters…
In cluster tomography, we propose measuring the number of clusters $N$ intersected by a line segment of length $\ell$ across a finite sample. As expected, the leading order of $N(\ell)$ scales as $a\ell$, where $a$ depends on microscopic…
We discuss experiments achievable via monitoring of stellar dynamics near the massive black hole at the Galactic center with a next generation, extremely large telescope (ELT). Given the likely observational capabilities of an ELT and…
Multiple stellar populations (MPs), characterized by star-to-star light-element abundance variations, are ubiquitous in globular clusters (GCs). Spectroscopy directly reveals these anomalies, while photometric studies, especially with the…
Using multi-wavelength imaging from the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope we study the stellar cluster populations of two adjacent fields in the nearby face-on spiral galaxy, M83. The observations cover the galactic centre…
We combine multiwavelength data in the AEGIS-XD and C-COSMOS surveys to measure the typical dark matter halo mass of X-ray selected AGN [Lx(2-10keV)>1e42 erg/s] in comparison with far-infrared selected star-forming galaxies detected in the…
Large samples of globular clusters (GC) with precise multi-wavelength photometry are becoming increasingly available and can be used to constrain the formation history of galaxies. We present the results of an analysis of Milky Way (MW) and…
This paper explores if, and to what an extent, the stellar populations of early type galaxies can be traced through the colour distribution of their globular cluster systems. The analysis, based on a galaxy sample from the Virgo ACS data,…
Globular clusters represent stellar laboratories where observations can be used to validate models of stellar evolution. In this study, we put forth new ultraviolet (UV) photometric results of stars in the Galactic globular cluster NGC…
In a previous study it was proposed that the Galactic dark matter being detected by gravitational microlensing experiments such as MACHO may reside in a population of dim halo globular clusters comprising mostly or entirely low-mass stars…
We are coming to believe that stellar populations in globular clusters are not as simple as they were once thought to be. A growing amount of photometric and spectroscopic evidence shows that globular clusters host at least two different…
The effects of stochasticity on the luminosities of stellar populations are an often neglected but crucial element for understanding populations in the low mass or low star formation rate regime. To address this issue, we present SLUG, a…
We use three strong lensing clusters to constrain the cosmological parameters Omega_m and Omega_lambda. Recent HST observations of galaxy clusters reveal a large number of multiple images, which are predicted to be at different redshifts.…
We develop a Maximum Likelihood estimator (MLE) to measure the masses of galaxy clusters through the impact of gravitational lensing on the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We show that, at…
Cluster abundance measurements are among the most sensitive probes of the amplitude of matter fluctuations in the universe, which in turn can help constrain other cosmological parameters, like the dark energy equation of state or neutrino…
Galaxy clusters are hotter and more X-ray luminous than in quiescence while they undergo major mergers, which also transiently increase their strong-lensing efficiency. We use semi-analytic models for both effects to study how cluster…